Day 22, Calabria Day 7

Day 22:  Calabria, Day 7

Quote of the Day: The A’s win the pennant, the A’s win the Pennant

Weather: On the warm side, too hot for THB to walk the vineyard

Note the odd shaped notebook

Department of Wishful Thinking: The A’s did not win the pennant. They were the fourth best team in the league and get to host the fifth best team in the league in a one game playoff. LB gets to go, KL and THB are on the road. If the A’s win the one game playoff they get to play the best team in the league in a best of 5 round.

Department of Reconsideration: THB ran into some issues when the Ukrainians on the Calabrian tour said they would blow the whistle on him if he did not rescind his concession speech. Rather than face impeachment, THB has agreed with the tour Representatives to provide more information on today’s event, specifically the 3+ hour lunch. THB rates the meal in the 2* category and thus is worthy of pics and description. The wines are good enough that several members of the tour buy the big red (aged 30 month in new oak barrels). #hopingforanothermeallikethisone

Checkout at a very considerate 10am. A longish bus ride southwest to the Serracavallo winery estate where we take a brief tour of the winery and vineyards and then will be tasting wines while having lunch. The day in pics:

Black olives, meaning they have ripened past the green stage 

Winery and upstairs is the dining area 

A new style lock on the toilet

The "animal" on the labels

The view from the deck outside the dining area

The warm appetizer: the "fried bread" with  lemon and salt...perfect

Co-leaders taking group pic

Potato souffle surrounding porcini mix and some great sopping sauce (chicory?)

One of the best dishes of the trip

Steak tartare with tartar sauce

Another winner

Risotto with elderberries and sausage;  the rice is the only non-immediately available food item, we're truly locavores for this meal. THB eats half, saving room for later courses.

Wheat and regular pasta stuffed with cheese 

Again, THB goes halfway, DB eats the whole thing because it's yummy

Pork belly and crunchy skin and potatoes. THB goes all in on the pork, just takes a bit of the potatoes

Venison with raspberry sauce

THB's hat serves as a bread basket holder

Easily the best meal in Calabria, not even close. And, in the top 3 meals of the entire trip (by THB's ranking)

2 white wines (the 2nd one is perfect with the potato souffle), one salty rose (yes, salty, THB thought it totally undrinkable), 3 reds (THB and DB liked the 2nd, aged 18 months in oak, the rest of the group liked and bought the 1st and 3rd red), and this dry not-sweet dessert red (also undrinkable to THB's taste)

 After lunch, THB suggests the chef come out for a round of applause. Some kid around 15 comes out wearing a chef’s apron (okay, he’s maybe 25). Two rounds of applause, sorry THB was too busy clapping to get a pic. And he was just hired for the day. Hopefully he's on his way to stardom, this meal was outstanding.

Old vines double protected from fire

It’s around 4pm, and we have a 1.5 hour drive to Pizzo for a gelati concoction that is well known. The gelaterias are in the old town, it is Sunday and the locals and tour buses are out in force. THB and DB share one and it comes pre-split so it is like we each order a regular sized portion.

Hot and muggy at 4 pm

At first THB thought the Lithuania Pavilion at the Biennale had moved to Pizzo

Patron saint of the Tartufo Moro

"English Soup" .... trifle flavored gelati

Coco is hoping for a lick or two of this massive offering

Half a moro

Some form of chocolate crumble on the outside and chocolate sauce on the inside, very sweet ($5.50 for two halves ... included in tour)

It's mostly downhill from the parking lot so there are tut-tut taxis that ferry a few back up

We leave Pizzo at sunset, here’s a pic of one of the two active volcanos in this area:

THB's arty pic of the day

Now it is almost 8 when we get to the Popilia County Resort that is our home for the last 3 days of the tour. The group is in “cottages” spread out beyond the large pool behind the main building. This is more like a golfing resort layout than anything we’ve seen so far.

THB and DB are in the haunted cottage: the key doesn’t open the door, the bags aren’t here after a 45 minute wait so THB goes up to the main building and takes them himself off the atv delivery van, DB can’t connect her i-pad to the wifi, the a/c doesn’t work (we are close to Lamezia so the a/c is controlled by the desk because “Italians don’t like a/c”, just like the Bram Hotel), the instructions on using the safe are incorrect, the soap dispenser in the shower doesn’t work (or at least THB can’t get the push down large bottle to work).

Maybe this is a warning shot from the Ukrainians on the tour?

And, we’re in a spacious two bedroom suite, way more modern than anything else on the trip. Hmmmm….semi-haunted?

Twin beds in first room

High ceilings, no head-ducking necessary

Stand-up shower just to left, no bathtub for DB

King size bed in main bedroom

DB and THB had already decided to skip dinner, a buffet of many salads. THB was not in the right frame of mind to assemble the grill, so that turned out to be a good advance decision; we snack in the room on various odds and ends THB has collected and kept in his backpack  (some from years ago…maybe many years ago).

Day 21, Calabria Day 6

Day 21:  Calabria, Day 6

Quote of the Day: Insert THB's concession speech into the official records

Weather: On the warm side, too hot for THB to walk the vineyard

Breakfast

7 minute workout and breakfast on the deck. Half the tour takes a tractor hay ride with the head of the farm estate, translated by Rosetta. Grapes right off the vine, a view of some of the many hectares, and a meet-up with a colony of black pigs. No  cheese demo, the shepherd is ill.

Hay ride

Glamping

Black pigs

The rest of the tour is awaiting us as we are late getting back. Time to rustle up those horses and head ‘em up and and roll ‘em out. Our first stop is another hilltop old town. OOOOOOOOPS, though our leaders were told that a bus could make it up the hill, it’s a no go. Lots of help and advice and still a no go. 20-25 minutes later we take the 10-15 slow walking tour up to our only winery of the day.

The key fork in the road

Damn, this car is parked in just the spot to keep the bus from making the turn

Strategy conference

A second car is now in a key spot

Flag man in rear

Front helper...doesn't work for long. The bus gets past this roadblock and immediately hits another impossible turn. Bus backs down into the other fork, we get out and walk into the old town

The local wine is a sauterne-like very labor intensive sweet wine. THB is some skeptical (what’s new) that each grape is finger pressed individually. Nobody offers up an appropriate job title. Instead of tasting the wines of this house, we head back through the old town to a small place converted into a wine tasting site. Chiara leads us through the description of the process and as we’re settling down to start the tasting some idiot on the tour asks if we are going to be ranking the five wines? (Yes, of course, it’s THB as if any of you had a single doubt).

This vine is growing out of small rectangle planter where you cannot see any soil, and still produces grapes (and is a support for laundry?)

We're in the old town part of Saracena

Two locals helping to bring tourism back to Saracena

Grapes on the rack, either laying down or hanging off hooks

The winery

The wines

Slow Food subsidized the local wineries using the old methods. These methods are unique in Italy, so unique they can't really get recognized as a DOC

Mr Viola, the owner/winemaker (Chiara is translating)

The tasting layout

The winner of the blind tasting of five wines: the wine from the house we had just visited! Good news: at least one of our tour had already bought 2 bottles of the winner…she’s a winner! Orders are taken and the wines are delivered to the bus for distribution and payment…looks a lot like a duty free event as you board your international flight.

Just by happenstance, the winner, #2, is made by Mr Viola. THB spits out his tastes into the while paper cup at top. It does appear several members of the tour managed to drink quite a lot of this high alcohol wine

Volunteers are making our lunch, served in the street.

Hand rolled on wire, then slid off

Unwelcome entertainment for great-grandpa

After the tasting we mosey in the old town for 5 minutes or so and find we are having lunch in the street. Two tables of 10 are set up and four of the local women are making pasta by hand, and prepping another gargantuan meal. The food is excellent, Chiara has found some unreleased bulk red and a few other bottles for us to taste (way better than the average). Much frivolity watched over by a great-grandfather like figure in his underwear (he’s not used to this much going on in his street). This goes on for at least 3 hours, maybe more.

The usual starters, well done by the volunteers, note red pepper flower arrangement

The final product with Parmesan and we add spicy red peppers from the flower arrangement

Very unusual to have a street party

Another unusual dish: meet balls and short ribs, a bowl this size for each table. Even if everyone in the hood joined us, there would be leftovers 

The back entrance to the place at one side of our block party

Dessert: sort of a roll with texture of churros, maybe not yeast, could be baking powder

The volunteers with daughter and mom and Coco the tour dog

The bus heads to the next old town where there is a church to see (and a wedding going on). THB and DB decide to linger at a café where the bus parks and skip the church. About 1 and ¾ hours to ourselves, tonic and water $3. And a big surprise: Castroville is having a car and scooter show in the parking lot:

Just like the California Castroville car show

It’s a short ride to the Hotel Barbieri for dinner. If THB and DB had known it was this close we would’ve had the bus take us over. So it goes on the road.  And, wouldn’t you know it, we’ve got a lovely table overlooking the pool…and…a giant wedding with 100s of guests and an extremely loud band. How loud was it? After the fireworks and desserts down below, a DJ replaces the R&B band and it gets so bad that THB retreats into the hotel, then into the front of the hotel, and if he had remembered where the bus was, he would have retreated to the bus. No conversation possible except when the band got quiet while people were eating.

Seating chart for wedding is hanging outside the main entrance, the tables represented by different paintings; the first guest must be related to the Statti Winery, the first stop on our Calabria tour oh those many days ago

Art in hotel appears to be by same artist

This is getting to be a thing: weddings and parties outside at night wherever we go. Not good for a guy that already has tinnitus. THB wishes they would’ve moved us inside though then we wouldn’t have been able to watch the wedding by hanging over the rail.

We're dining above a "Kardashian" style wedding

The pre-dessert band....LOUD

Fried bread

The entire can was dumped in the fryer

A crasher: she helps herself to our tour's appetizers; she must be staying at hotel because she eats by herself near our table

Time for dessert, the fireworks go off

And off

And off

And on

And on

The announced 15-20 minute ride back to the Castello takes 50 minutes, the bus takes the route that baffled our driver and leaders yesterday, today in the dark it works fine.